I feel like I've got a couple of things to write about, so I should do it properly - with smooth jazz and a large latte from the oddly friendly baristas.
Gi'z a Job?
When I wrote my last post, I was about to embark on a grand tour of england to ask ~10 companies for work. That was around 2 years ago, and turned out quite well. The first interview went quite well, I did their test, presented myself professionally(or so I thought), but apparently they didn't like me.As it happens, I only recently figured out how I managed to make a pigs ear of that one. It was like a lover's quarrel - one unnoticed technical misunderstanding lead to a nonsensical quip and before long, the interview had spiralled out of control while I, obliviously, was talking out of my arse with such prowess I'm surprised they didn't hire me for a sales position (hurr hurr).
I visited a number of other companies including Altera(great place to work by the looks of it. Would not have been a good fit for me at the time). I ended up at a great little firm in Bristol: Multicom. Not many people, lots of work; I couldn't have asked for a better first job.
'Professional'
I like to think I became a professional in the six months of employment which followed. I learned the ropes, I learned the shape of things to come, I learned how my skills fit into a business and what it's like to blend fun with that which makes money.Being honest, I went into there almost suspecting that I was going to be nothing more than a drain on resources and general annoyance. Quite the opposite happened - I gained a huge amount of confidence and it turns out that employment was what I needed to start enjoying life.
After six months, pounding out Java to mine data from all kinds of sources from clean XML APIs, ghastly XML APIs, nonsensical websites and excel spreadsheets(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_POI is decent for this),
I moved back to Aberdeen for unavoidable family-type reasons(I wasn't actually homesick).
Oops, I learned something
It turns out it was much easier to get a job the second time round. With my CV bulked up with all kinds of experience, I was quickly snapped up and now spend most of my time working on fancy geology software.I've worked there for about 16 months, now.
I have no regrets regarding my decision to take work instead of another year at university and an honours degree. It suited me, it might not suit you, or someone at another university on a different course.
- Employers are scared of graduates (rightly so, given what a joke some modern CS courses are).
- It's good to customize your CV for different kinds of work you're willing to do. I personally kept 2 CVs around. One, I like to call my J2EE CV, which boasts of Enterprisey experience and my favourite Java features. My other CV has more of a tinkerer feel to it, talking about how I'm used to a C/UNIX environment and like to play with microcontrollers.
- Software Engineering is a young profession and as such, there are lots of cults, misinformation, obsessions and unknowns. It's also strangely hard at times.
- It's good to stuff your CV with buzzwords, so long as they're accurate: Your CV will almost certainly pass under the nose of someone who is looking for them.
